Anyone who has been watching the news lately knows that the markets have had a really rough week. Tonight, when you turn on the news, you might hear people mention the word “correction” in reference to what’s happened in the market lately. Sometimes the financial news media can tend to sensationalize negative market news because […]

A combination of factors has led to a sluggish stock market so far this summer. Concerns about Greece gave way to concerns about volatility in the Chinese stock market. And while all of this was going on, the price of oil began to plummet again, getting close to the lows it reached earlier this year. […]

Across all the major market indices for March, we saw a lot of volatility from one day to the next. The S&P 500 was down about 2% for the month, although it rallied a little bit into the end of March from some of its mid-Month lows. There was a mixture of strong and weak […]

The S&P 500 was down almost 3% in January as a variety of negative factors dominated headlines throughout the month. The month began with concerns about Greek elections and falling oil, and neither of those concerns really abated as the month progressed. The January 25th Greek elections, won by a leftist party that is opposed […]

The markets closed out 2014 with a seesaw of volatility, much like we saw in October — and might be faced with again throughout 2015. The S&P 500 was down only a fraction of 1% for the month, but was down over 4.6% at one point in mid-December before rallying into the end of the […]

December is usually the time of year when we get concerned calls from clients asking why their mutual funds “dropped” on a day where the market was positive. Most often, there is a simple explanation for this phenomenon: the payment of capital gains and/or dividends. Capital gains and dividends that are generated within mutual funds […]

The market’s strong rally to close October continued into November, albeit at a much more moderate pace, as the S&P 500 gained about 2.5% for the month. Compared to recent months, November lacked a lot of attention-grabbing headlines and saw a lot less overall volatility. One area that did experience quite a bit of choppiness […]

Investors have relentlessly bashed the likes of McDonalds, IBM, Coca Cola, etc. lately for lackluster (to put it lightly) earnings and forward guidance suggesting such companies (stocks) are un-ownable. To view such companies through the single prism of equity ownership is a very short sighted investment philosophy. Simply adjusting your strategy along the capital structure […]

From the epic movie, The Hunt for Red October, the following series captures what happens when volatility spikes in the markets: “They’re pinging away with their active sonar like they’re looking for something, but nobody’s listening. Captain Davenport: Well, they’re moving at almost forty knots. At that speed, they could run right over my daughter’s […]

Phew! October proved to be one of the wildest months for the stock market in recent memory. At one point intraday on October 15th, the S&P 500 had declined about 9.9% from it’s all-time high — we’ll call this “close enough” to the 10% territory that defines a true stock market “correction,” which is something […]